Lake Manze Tented Camp review

great atmosphere, love the overall camp, with the elephants around the tents! Like the idea of sharing tables for meals.

Only regret: we had a trainee guide for all our drive safaris, and, having been on safari before, he did not bring much new with his comments. It was more a "chat with him" than real information or anecdotes about the animals...

the drive boat was great, in a quite small boat near quite big animals!

Lake Manze Tented Camp review

This was a great introduction to what it means to be on safari. Straight from the plane we went onto a game drive with a really experienced and friendly guide (Victor) and brilliant driver (Salom). Then back for lunch which, like all of the meals, was fantastic with real quality.

Our tent was great too - more of a rustic experience with no electricity but just what we wanted as we wanted to feel like we were on an adventure. There is power available in the bar too so you can charge phones, cameras, etc.

It was an extremely relaxing experience with the day built around what we wanted to do and a variety of activities on offer. Being near the lake the option of a boat safari is excellent with even more animals to see.

To top it all off we were visited daily by elephants right outside our tent which was an experience we will never forget. To be so close to them was amazing.

Finally, it was a great touch for the staff to organise a romantic meal for two outside our tent on our last night. We would heartily recommend Lake Manze Camp to anyone considering a safari.

It was the real Africa, a pleasant suprise!

I couldn't believe how close we were to the animals and how much we saw so quickly.......the staff in the camp and the guides were friendly, knowledgable and courteous .........always smiling and pleasant.

The food and accommodation were great, and was pleasantly suprised by Sarah......the girl that runs the camp is Italian!I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone, I had no tummy upset and no insect bites either....Great result!

Being on the edge of the lake was great as all the animals travelled passed us day and night!

Lake Manze Tented Camp review

Marvellous wildlife, and plenty of it in camp!

Our guide Emmauel and driver Bacari were good company and were very keen to find the animals for us , and also gave good info on birdlife and flora. We saw very few other vehicles. A lovely welcome in the camp from Sara and her staff, and we especially liked the tented bar/dining area. We enjoyed the river and lake trips, seeing lots of hippos and crocs. Plenty of good food, just a little heavy sometimes.

Tents were comfortable,spotless and bug free! The actual location of the camp was great, the only minus being a deeply rutted track in some places which made access quite uncomfortable.

Lake Manze - Ouch!

Lake Manze earns a Good because of the high quality and quantity of sightings in such a short time. Liz warned us that the camp was not our 'usual choice' but the lack of light and fans in the tents during a period of unseasonal heat and humidity proved extremely uncomfortable and in no way 'romantic' as described by a male Australian fellow guest!

The food was average and the random, management directed seating at main meals served only to separate us from other guests we might have chosen to sit with if left to our own devices. We knew drinks were extra but bottled water was also charged for when the alternative of 'filtered and boiled' lake water was barely drinkable. It was also irritating, when faced with a difficult tipping situation of 3 'guide, driver, boatman' recipients over 2 airstrip runs, one drive and 2 boat trips, to be told by the guide that I 'should have read the instructions in the room' and tipped him directly rather than my solution of a single tip in the box for the manager to share fairly. Poor judgement by us not to take Expert Africa advice.

We did not enjoy our stay. As has been reported by a number of other Expert Africa clients, this camp seems designed to serve the 1 or 2 night safari 'adventure' needs of Zanzibar holidaymakers.

We’re very sorry that Lake Manze Camp wasn’t a good fit for this traveller. We passed their comments to the team at camp, who have looked into the issues.

Firstly, they are looking at putting fans into the rooms, although this is complicated by Lake Manze’s lack of electricity. Until this is resolved, this is a good point and worth noting: November - March in the Selous does get very hot and humid. If travellers are sensitive to the heat, we’d suggest that they choose a camp with powered fans in its rooms.

The dining at Manze is communal and there are often different nationalities at the camp. The managers try to guide guests to sit next to others who understand the same language – and guests often find this useful. However, perhaps this sometimes appears slightly forced and they have resolved to try to direct guests more discreetly in the future. We’d always comment that if guests ever have a preference of who they sit with, then they should always let the manager know.

Lake Manze’s filtered water is perfectly safe to drink – and bottled water is an extra cost there for environmental reasons. It takes a lot of fuel and energy to make, transport, and dispose of bottles for water. Given the remote nature of the camp, they strive to reduce the waste that they produce. That said, the Lake Manze team acknowledge that the taste of the filtered water is not to everyone’s liking, and have since made bottled water free for those who really do not like the filtered stuff.

The Lake Manze team apologized if these travellers felt frustrated by the tipping situation. However, they feel that tipping is a personal choice, and that it’s less awkward to make tipping suggestions in the room’s literature, rather than discussing it with each guest. Information on tipping is provided in each tent and they urge guests to read this. It appears there was a language issue when the guide explained the tipping situation, and they apologise for this. We’d encourage guests to ask the managers at any camp if they are unsure how tipping operates, as it differs slightly from camp to camp.

Mr L & Ms H from Surrey

Arrived on: 13-Nov-2010 Stayed for: 5 nights

Overall:

Excellent

Location:

Excellent

Rooms:

Excellent

Service:

Excellent

Food:

Good

Activities:

Excellent

Facilities:

Good

Amazing safari at Lake Manze

We saw a pride of lions just five minutes after our plane landed, and before we had even reached the camp - a great way to begin our 5 days at Lake Manze. We thoroughly enjoyed the trips in the boat, and all the drives.

I think our favorite was the early morning drives with breakfast out in the middle of nowhere - our driver (Salom) and guide (Emmanuel) were excellent - full of knowledge about every animal, insect and bird. Definitely a good idea to stick with the same driver/guide pairing through your stay to ensure you always go somewhere different on each drive.

As to the animals - well having elephants in the camp, watching 3 lion cubs at play out on a drive, and then discovering a pack of wild dogs at rest in a river bed are memories we will treasure for years to come.

For anyone who wants to feel properly outdoors then Lake Manze is the place to go - my wife who is not keen on camping, thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience - so Richard and his team are definitely doing something right!

Lake Manze Tented Camp review

The concept of Lake Maze as a simple camp being close to nature is a fabulous one but it just doesnt quite manage it in our view. Negative points first..

The tents are great, but quite close together, overlooked by both neighbouring tents and a large number of Maasi guards and didnt actually look out onto the lake as we assumed they would (ours looked onto the back of the next tent).

One night both the tents either side of us were empty, wonderful we thought... we can leave the window flaps up and catch the breeze. Unfortunately the Guards sitting in the front porches of both neighbouring tents and their frequent torch shining onto ours meant that the windows went down pretty quickly - shame. We didnt quite understand the need for so many guards.

The guiding was very erratic, especially so on the drives which were very much in the 'tick the box and list the fact' style which unfortunately is all too common in Tanzania.

I think this is a Selous problem in general rather than just the camp area.. the animals, especially Elephants were very skittish. It would have been lovely to have a place where you could sit with your Binos and a G&T to watch the action by the water, the camp really doesnt seem to make the most of it's location here.

Now the positives..

The Lake is the main attraction here and we ended up spending most of our time on it. We had an excellent boat guide one morning who obviously loved the birds in the area and was really enthusiastic in sharing his knowledge and experience. Fishing for catfish was also a great way to take in the calm of the lake.

Richard is a great character and runs the camp very well, it is quite regimented but we did get the impression that it needs to be. His conversation and wry questioning ended up being an unforseen highlight of our stay

There is a very wide mix of guests here, especially over the weekend when expats based in Dar visit for a couple of nights which made conversation in the bar very interesting, and multi lingual. We will always remember the baffled look on the face of the Spanish couple as our Belgian friend regaled them of the hunting style of the savnnah dwelling blue ringed octopus, complete with sound effects from the German vet sitting next to him!

Lake Manze Tented Camp review

The following is a brief update of our recent few days at Lake Manze. We found the accomodation ie. tents, dinning and relaxing facilities every thing we expected from myself and Sheila's previous experiences. The set up of the tents both in position and structure proved to be very exciting especially with the younger members of our family. Food was very good, very well prepared and of great varity. Richard and his staff were absolutely first class in attending to our needs and nothing was to much trouble and that included all our family in what can only be described as a lovely relaxing and welcoming atmosphere.

Lake Manze and the surrounding area I think exceeded our expectation,The diversity gave for really good game drives with great variety in the game and bird life we saw and if I say one section of our family (two adults and two of the children) had over two thousand photographs between them (we have not as yet had the opportunity to total the remainder) even for a first safari proves the wild life was in abundance.

Overall the trip was a very exciting adventure and all our family would like to express their thanks to Expert Africa, and feels you certainly lived up to your name.

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